THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
June 12, 2016
www.theparacast.com
We Explore the Boundaries of UFO Research on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, and we've launched The Paracast+ Video Channel. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership! For more information about our premium package, please visit: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris present a return visit from Col. John Alexander. As a cutting-edge theorist on UFOs and paranormal phenomena in general, his views stretch the boundaries of Research.” His 2011 book, “UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities” featured a foreword from Dr. Jacques Vallee and a commentary from the late Tom Clancy. What a juxtaposition, and you’ll learn something about Clancy and his attitude towards UFOs. In addition to theorizing about our paranormal universe, “for the past six decades Dr. Alexander has been directly or indirectly involved in national security affairs. He wrote the seminal articles on non-lethal weapons and has authored studies on a wide variety of complex issues.” All in all, expect a wide-ranging discussion of the most important issues of the day.
Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet
John Alexander’s Blog: John B. Alexander - Home
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on June 12: [PG-13]: Following up on the interview with Col. John B. Alexander on The Paracast, Gene and Chris remark on how seriously the late best-selling author Tom Clancy considered the subject. Gene quotes excerpts from Clancy’s commentary in Alexander’s 2011 UFO book, “UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities.” At first, though, the listener will wonder whether Chris has taken an oath of silence, as he delivers one-word and two-word responses; that is until the dynamic duo are joined by George Wingfield, the out-0f-the-box UFO theorist. He explains why he feels that there actually was a Mogul flight number four that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico and was first identified as a flying saucer. He goes on to explain how the Roswell meme influenced the belief in UFOs as spaceships. The discussion also includes the early claims of alien contacts that Gene, Chris and Georg e agree to be mostly sci-fi. George goes on to explain why he regards the Rendlesham Forest UFO case as “intriguing.”
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
Keeping Politics Out of UFOs — Sure, Right!
By Gene Steinberg
Whenever we dare mention the dicey subject of politics on The Paracast we, as Chris O’Brien says, often get “spanked” for touching on this oh-so-polarizing topic. True, some listeners are happy to see us extend into such troubling waters. Besides, it’s not as if you can always avoid it.
Take UFOs. The modern UFO era began with a military — hence government — focus. From the early 1950s, UFO researchers have demanded that Congress investigate the matter to see what the Air Force and other agencies actually know about the phenomenon.
One of the largest UFO research organizations in those days, NICAP, under the leadership of Major Donald E. Keyhoe, lobbied for such hearings. Keyhoe often said his plan was to put NICAP out of business in sync with the expected successful conclusion of a Congressional investigation. He naively believed that our legislators, when presented with the amazing truth about our visitors, would demand to know the truth, and disclosure would be at hand.
The niceties of our political realities never seemed to occur to him, at least based on what he wrote in the early days.
In recent years, a group of disclosure activists petitioned President Obama to reveal the truth about UFOs. Despite getting less than 20,000 signatures — small potatoes as petitions go — a White House bureaucrat responded anyway, with the usual stock response that “the U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”
But what did you expect?
The disclosure movement won’t give up, and they continue the fight to persuade the government to reveal what they consider to be the truth about our extraterrestrial visitors. Denials are simply regarded as evidence of the cover-up. There’s no deterring them despite years of unfulfilled predictions that the facts will soon be revealed.
The latest prediction, from disclosure lobbyist-in-chief Stephen Bassett, has it that President Obama will reveal the existence of ET before his term ends. Well, they are running out of time aren’t they?
If it doesn’t happen, and I’m not holding my breath, you can expect that Bassett will tell us how the powers-that-be vetoed the effort at the last minute, or something of that sort.
But as you see, there’s no way to keep politics out of UFOs. So long as the subject of government investigations and evidence is discussed, the political implications aren’t far behind.
Indeed, recent political scuttlebutt is about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic candidate for President, and her positive statements about UFOs. All right, she once mentioned “Area 54” in promising to get to the bottom of the UFO mystery, but she probably just misspoke. It happens to the best of us.
Besides, it’s not as if she’s the first candidate to promise to look for UFO information. Her husband made a similar promise when he ran for high office, and don’t forget positive statements from President Carter ahead of his single term, and even from President Reagan. It’s inevitable that such promises — and others made during the course of a campaign — will be forgotten once the oath of office is taken.
I suppose Secretary Clinton’s situation might be a little different, because one of her key campaign aides, John Podesta, has a long-time interest in UFOs. Indeed, after leaving his post with the Obama administration, he tweeted his regret that he wasn’t able to get the UFO information he wanted. He also wrote the foreword to Leslie Kean’s book, “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.” That was one huge step that could have had nasty repercussions, but evidently it didn’t.
That doesn’t mean Podesta is advocating for the existence of extraterrestrials. But it appears he wants the subject to be taken seriously regardless of the outcome, which is a perfectly reasonable approach.
Certainly there is a pro and con argument about what the government knows, and whether they possess actual evidence that solves the UFO mystery. What about reports that there have been interactions between Earth governments and our space visitors? What about Roswell? Is a crashed spaceship and the bodies of its alien crew still being stored at a hidden military installation?
I suppose it’s also possible that representatives of a breakaway civilization, consisting of people who, for various reasons, chose to separate themselves from the rest of the world, might interact with our governments at some level. It may be only to assert their rights to remain separate from us. Or to warn us off if we attempt to interfere with them or their way of life.
Regardless, anytime you mention these subjects and possible government interest, you are immersed in the world of politics. Sidestepping this topic leaves all that potential evidence on the table, so it cannot be avoided.
And then there are all those requests via the Freedom of Information Act for the U.S. government to release what they know about certain UFO sightings or other possible evidence. Once a request of this sort is made, you are forced to interact with government bureaucrats and political appointees in the quest to get what you want.
If it’s more difficult to get a response to an FOIA request nowadays, who is at fault? Is the promise of the Obama administration to handle such requests faster and more efficiently actually happening? Apparently it’s not. Indeed, it appears that cases of possible stonewalling are only on the increase. Some of that may be the result of government cutbacks, having fewer people at hand to manage the release of this information.
Certainly, the “sequester,” the 2011 agreement between Congress and President Obama to automatically cut agency budgets if no specific allocation is approved, might be responsible for FOIA delays and inadequate responses because there are fewer people to manage these services. By the way, that’s also the reason why many calls to the IRS go unanswered these days, and one would think that the government’s tax collection agency would get first dibs on funding.
FOIA requests, therefore, go to the bottom of the barrel.
So the next time you hear your friendly hosts of The Paracast — and some of our guests — broach politics, consider whether it’s really irrelevant. I don’t think it is. Such discussions are inevitable, though we try to keep them at the minimum.
Copyright 1999-2016 The Paracast LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
June 12, 2016
www.theparacast.com
We Explore the Boundaries of UFO Research on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, and we've launched The Paracast+ Video Channel. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership! For more information about our premium package, please visit: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris present a return visit from Col. John Alexander. As a cutting-edge theorist on UFOs and paranormal phenomena in general, his views stretch the boundaries of Research.” His 2011 book, “UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities” featured a foreword from Dr. Jacques Vallee and a commentary from the late Tom Clancy. What a juxtaposition, and you’ll learn something about Clancy and his attitude towards UFOs. In addition to theorizing about our paranormal universe, “for the past six decades Dr. Alexander has been directly or indirectly involved in national security affairs. He wrote the seminal articles on non-lethal weapons and has authored studies on a wide variety of complex issues.” All in all, expect a wide-ranging discussion of the most important issues of the day.
Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet
John Alexander’s Blog: John B. Alexander - Home
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on June 12: [PG-13]: Following up on the interview with Col. John B. Alexander on The Paracast, Gene and Chris remark on how seriously the late best-selling author Tom Clancy considered the subject. Gene quotes excerpts from Clancy’s commentary in Alexander’s 2011 UFO book, “UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities.” At first, though, the listener will wonder whether Chris has taken an oath of silence, as he delivers one-word and two-word responses; that is until the dynamic duo are joined by George Wingfield, the out-0f-the-box UFO theorist. He explains why he feels that there actually was a Mogul flight number four that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico and was first identified as a flying saucer. He goes on to explain how the Roswell meme influenced the belief in UFOs as spaceships. The discussion also includes the early claims of alien contacts that Gene, Chris and Georg e agree to be mostly sci-fi. George goes on to explain why he regards the Rendlesham Forest UFO case as “intriguing.”
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
Keeping Politics Out of UFOs — Sure, Right!
By Gene Steinberg
Whenever we dare mention the dicey subject of politics on The Paracast we, as Chris O’Brien says, often get “spanked” for touching on this oh-so-polarizing topic. True, some listeners are happy to see us extend into such troubling waters. Besides, it’s not as if you can always avoid it.
Take UFOs. The modern UFO era began with a military — hence government — focus. From the early 1950s, UFO researchers have demanded that Congress investigate the matter to see what the Air Force and other agencies actually know about the phenomenon.
One of the largest UFO research organizations in those days, NICAP, under the leadership of Major Donald E. Keyhoe, lobbied for such hearings. Keyhoe often said his plan was to put NICAP out of business in sync with the expected successful conclusion of a Congressional investigation. He naively believed that our legislators, when presented with the amazing truth about our visitors, would demand to know the truth, and disclosure would be at hand.
The niceties of our political realities never seemed to occur to him, at least based on what he wrote in the early days.
In recent years, a group of disclosure activists petitioned President Obama to reveal the truth about UFOs. Despite getting less than 20,000 signatures — small potatoes as petitions go — a White House bureaucrat responded anyway, with the usual stock response that “the U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”
But what did you expect?
The disclosure movement won’t give up, and they continue the fight to persuade the government to reveal what they consider to be the truth about our extraterrestrial visitors. Denials are simply regarded as evidence of the cover-up. There’s no deterring them despite years of unfulfilled predictions that the facts will soon be revealed.
The latest prediction, from disclosure lobbyist-in-chief Stephen Bassett, has it that President Obama will reveal the existence of ET before his term ends. Well, they are running out of time aren’t they?
If it doesn’t happen, and I’m not holding my breath, you can expect that Bassett will tell us how the powers-that-be vetoed the effort at the last minute, or something of that sort.
But as you see, there’s no way to keep politics out of UFOs. So long as the subject of government investigations and evidence is discussed, the political implications aren’t far behind.
Indeed, recent political scuttlebutt is about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic candidate for President, and her positive statements about UFOs. All right, she once mentioned “Area 54” in promising to get to the bottom of the UFO mystery, but she probably just misspoke. It happens to the best of us.
Besides, it’s not as if she’s the first candidate to promise to look for UFO information. Her husband made a similar promise when he ran for high office, and don’t forget positive statements from President Carter ahead of his single term, and even from President Reagan. It’s inevitable that such promises — and others made during the course of a campaign — will be forgotten once the oath of office is taken.
I suppose Secretary Clinton’s situation might be a little different, because one of her key campaign aides, John Podesta, has a long-time interest in UFOs. Indeed, after leaving his post with the Obama administration, he tweeted his regret that he wasn’t able to get the UFO information he wanted. He also wrote the foreword to Leslie Kean’s book, “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.” That was one huge step that could have had nasty repercussions, but evidently it didn’t.
That doesn’t mean Podesta is advocating for the existence of extraterrestrials. But it appears he wants the subject to be taken seriously regardless of the outcome, which is a perfectly reasonable approach.
Certainly there is a pro and con argument about what the government knows, and whether they possess actual evidence that solves the UFO mystery. What about reports that there have been interactions between Earth governments and our space visitors? What about Roswell? Is a crashed spaceship and the bodies of its alien crew still being stored at a hidden military installation?
I suppose it’s also possible that representatives of a breakaway civilization, consisting of people who, for various reasons, chose to separate themselves from the rest of the world, might interact with our governments at some level. It may be only to assert their rights to remain separate from us. Or to warn us off if we attempt to interfere with them or their way of life.
Regardless, anytime you mention these subjects and possible government interest, you are immersed in the world of politics. Sidestepping this topic leaves all that potential evidence on the table, so it cannot be avoided.
And then there are all those requests via the Freedom of Information Act for the U.S. government to release what they know about certain UFO sightings or other possible evidence. Once a request of this sort is made, you are forced to interact with government bureaucrats and political appointees in the quest to get what you want.
If it’s more difficult to get a response to an FOIA request nowadays, who is at fault? Is the promise of the Obama administration to handle such requests faster and more efficiently actually happening? Apparently it’s not. Indeed, it appears that cases of possible stonewalling are only on the increase. Some of that may be the result of government cutbacks, having fewer people at hand to manage the release of this information.
Certainly, the “sequester,” the 2011 agreement between Congress and President Obama to automatically cut agency budgets if no specific allocation is approved, might be responsible for FOIA delays and inadequate responses because there are fewer people to manage these services. By the way, that’s also the reason why many calls to the IRS go unanswered these days, and one would think that the government’s tax collection agency would get first dibs on funding.
FOIA requests, therefore, go to the bottom of the barrel.
So the next time you hear your friendly hosts of The Paracast — and some of our guests — broach politics, consider whether it’s really irrelevant. I don’t think it is. Such discussions are inevitable, though we try to keep them at the minimum.
Copyright 1999-2016 The Paracast LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!